


When the Waves Came

by the_artifice_of_eternity



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Númenor, Religious Persecution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 03:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14560224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_artifice_of_eternity/pseuds/the_artifice_of_eternity
Summary: I won't lieand say the ocean begged for forgiveness;it gleams unchanged in the sun.Vardamírë has lost her home, her friend, and her faith. Year after year, she returns to the sea that took it all away, and remembers.





	When the Waves Came

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the LLA poetry prompt: ["Upon Realizing Their Are Ghosts in the Water"](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/622369/pdf) by Leila Chatti.

The sea has not changed. 

Summer in Belfalas is stifling hot, and the stars overhead turn in unfamiliar constellations. But the gulls shriek in the same harsh voices Vardamírë knew in her childhood, and the waves beat the same relentless pulse against the shore. Alone on the beach, she slips off her shoes and walks out into the surf, watching the tide sweep her footprints smooth behind her. 

It is the Erulaitalë, and in the new capital at Osgiliath the princes will be standing on the windswept roof of their tower, heads bowed to the west as they murmur words of thanksgiving to Manwë, and Varda, and the One who is above them. Here, in the sturdy houses clustered on the slopes of the bay, families will be lighting candles behind drawn curtains and clasping their hands over a shared meal. But Vardamírë does not observe the old rites, not anymore. Her only prayer is to stand vigil with the sea, which demands no gratitude and offers no answers. 

As she walks farther out, the waves slam against her legs, her hips, her stomach. She imagines she can feel hands grasping at her ankles, some stroking gently, others gripping to drag her under. Old wrinkled hands, tiny children’s hands, hands stained with ink or callused from the pommel of a sword. It is the same sea. Encircling the world now, inescapable, like a dragon swallowing its tail.

 _You are very brave_ , her neighbors say each time she comes trudging up the hill, clothes soaked and feet sandy. _Most of the Exiles can’t even bear the sound of the waves._ But Vardamírë is not afraid of the sea, though she knows how easily it could snuff her out. The only annihilation she fears is forgetting, and watching the world forget.

She is chest-deep in the water now, rocking with the swells. Tipping onto her back, she drifts, arms spread wide, hair a black fan around her head. Above her, the stars of her namesake wink to life in the purple dusk. Below her is a grave. 

 

One hundred years ago, Ar-Pharazȏn the Golden set sail for Middle-earth, on the campaign from which he would return triumphant. It was the day Vardamírë stuffed her pockets with letters and snuck down to the harbor. With all the excitement in the streets, no one noticed an eleven-year-old girl scrambling down the rocks to the damp shadows under the pier, where the ground was littered with spat-out bits of abalone shell, and someone had scratched _long live the rightful queen_ into the side of a post with what looked like a knife. She discarded her shoes, though they were already soaked through with mud, and waded knee-deep into the water, hiking up her skirts one-handed. With the other hand, she drew the bundle of letters out of her pocket, smudged and wrinkled from years of rereading. 

She paused, palms sweating. Waves slapped the underside of the pier, echoing hollow off wooden boards; far off she could hear a blaze of trumpets, and cheering. Dropping the first of her letters, she watched it bob on the surface of the water, edges curling inward, before slowly crumpling. “Exalted Lady!” she whispered. “Pearl-bright Lady! You whose eyes hold depths unfathomable –”

“Zaira!”

Hearing her outer name, Vardamírë spun around, nearly tripping backwards into the water. But it was just Ûrinzil jumping down the rocks, her curly hair flying loose of its plait. “I’ve been looking for you all morning! What are you doing down here? Don’t you want to watch the armada sail?”

Vardamírë shoved the letters behind her back, though they held nothing incriminating – children’s rhymes, sketches of the flowers in Andúnië, gentle reminders to study hard and behave herself. Her parents taught her the secret lore in songs and stories, never in writing. “How did you know I was here?” 

“You always come down here when you want to think,” Ûri said matter-of-factly, and Vardamírë cursed herself for being so obvious. “But what is there to think about today? Today we are a part of history!”

“I was praying.” The words slipped out before Vardamírë could think better of them. “For Attȏ.” 

The grin slipped from Ûri’s face. Wading out next to Vardamírë – though she didn’t bother raising her skirts – she frowned at the nearest ship bobbing in the harbor. “Are you scared he’ll be hurt in the war?”

Vardamírë laughed softly. “Of course I’m scared. Aren’t you?”

 _This is a good thing_ , her father had murmured into her mother’s hair, after they thought she’d fallen asleep. _A chance to prove our loyalty. He won’t watch us so closely, after._

 _Nothing we do will_ ever _prove our loyalty_. Her mother’s whisper was choked with tears, or maybe rage. _Why should you die for him? If we go now, we could reach Lindon –_

_You know the harbor is watched. Please don’t wake her, Nairiel._

Ûrinzil, whose own father was captain of a minor galley, shook her head. “The sorcerer-king in the east can’t hope to stand against us. We have the mightiest fleet in the world, and the cleverest weapons, and the strongest men. Everyone knows that.” 

“But what if sickness spreads through the camp? What if they die at sea?”

“Such things happened before we learned how to guard against infection, and before we mapped the currents of the sea and sky,” Ûri said. “Now there is no need to beg help from the gods. We can trust to our own strength and skill.” But she sounded uncertain. 

“I know,” Vardamírë said, since her parents had taught her to agree with such things out loud. “But – I feel so helpless, being left behind. I don’t know what else to do.” 

Ûrinzil swirled her skirts in the water, uncharacteristically silent. Then she said, “I understand. I think I would like to pray too. Will you show me how?”

Vardamírë swallowed. Since she was very young, she had known that certain things were dangerous, not to be shared with anyone besides her parents and their small circle of friends. But this was Ûrinzil, who had waited for her outside the schoolroom every day since they were six, and taught her how to climb the roof of the warehouse in the fisherman’s wharf, and snorted when she laughed. Vardamírë wanted to share this with her. 

“All right,” she said slowly. “It’s an old prayer to Uinen, for when someone you love is going on a voyage. You’re supposed –” she waved the papers in her hand awkwardly. “You’re supposed to offer something valuable to the sea, but it’s fine if you don’t have anything. I’m using these letters Attȏ wrote me on my birthdays.”

Spoken out loud, it sounded foolish. In past centuries, the coast-folk of Númenor had strewn the waves with gold, pearls, bolts of precious silk, competing to see who could prove most generous to the goddess. Her family had traded in such goods once, when they were merchants in Andúnië, but her great-grandfather had been stripped of all his property when he was forced to move to Rómenna on suspicion of treason. Vardamírë did not even have a bracelet to offer, and she suddenly doubted that the Lady Uinen would be grateful for a child’s worn letters, even if it was the first offering she’d received in many long years. 

Ûri bit her lip, then reached up and unwound a red ribbon, bright with gold thread, from her hair. “Is this enough? Ammȇ bought it for me at the market.” 

“Will you be in trouble if you lose it?”

“I’m always in trouble,” Ûri shrugged. “This is more important. What do we say?”

The noise in the street was growing louder, approaching the harbor; Vardamírë thought she could hear the crowd chanting the king’s name. But always the ocean was louder, the relentless slap and hiss of the waves. Voice quiet but unwavering, she said:

 _Exalted Lady!_  
_Pearl-bright Lady!_  
_You whose eyes hold depths unfathomable,_  
_You who wear the seven tides girdled about your waist –_  
_Hear us_  
_Who lie before you like grains of sand,_  
_And show mercy to us._

 _Hold us in your palm,_  
_Hold us upon the swell of your breast,_  
_And restrain the wrath of your consort,_  
_Let not the wrath of your consort be roused against us_  
_But bear us safe beneath the boundless stars_  
_To the shore._

She dropped the letters in a pile, watched them drift apart. She’d imagined a great tide sucking their offerings out to sea, but they remained floating on the waves: a girl’s five-penny hair ribbon, and a handful of papers slowly bleeding with ink. Blocks away, the roar of the crowd reached a new pitch: they were watching their king, garbed head-to-toe in golden armor, stride up the gangplank of his ship to mount his challenge against a god. 

 

“Have you seen the new opera at the Red Hall?” Ûri asked one morning when they met, as they did every week, at their favorite coffee house overlooking the harbor. They sat at their habitual table tucked away in the corner of the patio, with a view of the bustling promenade and the sea gleaming blue-green beyond it. 

“No. What is it, Túrin again?”

“Yes, but you’ve never seen it like this! They’ve built the dragon out of clockwork so he can move on his own, and he actually breathes fire. They say it’s a compound of naphtha and resin set alight and propelled from his throat.” 

Vardamírë blew delicately at her coffee. “That sounds like a brilliant way to burn the hall down with everyone inside it.” 

“Oh, you’re no fun. Have another cookie, I can’t finish them on my own.” 

The sea-breeze was blowing warm through Vardamírë’s hair, and wistful music drifted up from the promenade, where someone was strumming a lute. She could almost pretend they were no more than this, two careless young women laughing together on a beautiful day, with their whole lives before them. 

Three days ago, the king’s guards took her neighbor from the market where she was buying a new shawl. In broad daylight, with no charges offered and no resistance from anyone watching. As they dragged the pleading woman away, the tailor had quietly folded the shawl and placed it back in its pile. 

With each new terror, she clung all the harder to the things that did not change. Dark roasted beans, imported from Umbar. Two spoons of sugar. Date cookies arranged like flower petals on a plate. She took a slow sip of her coffee, and tried not to wonder whether her parents would be there when she got home. 

“I haven’t seen you in Zurêth’s shop for weeks,” she said, lightly. “Are you still working there, or did she finally get tired of you offending her customers?”

An odd frown crossed Ûri’s face. “I don’t know. I – may have a new job.” 

“What? Tell me!”

“Well,” she said, swirling her coffee with her spoon, “I never mentioned this because I didn’t think it would come to anything, I just wanted Attô to stop pushing about it. But I took the civil service exam last month. Apparently, I passed.” 

Hours later, Vardamírë would begin to sort through the mess of emotions that struck her in that moment. At the time, she was only aware of the twisting in her gut. But she had plenty of practice faking smiles. “Ûri, that’s fantastic! What position have they offered you?”

“A minor accountant, managing tax records.” Ûri shrugged, still frowning into her coffee. “It will be dull.” 

“Not for you. You’ve always liked working with sums. When will you start?”

Setting down her spoon, Ûri met Vardamírë’s eyes. “I’m actually not sure I will.” 

Laughter from the promenade; children shrieking as they chased each other through the crowd. “What are you talking about?” Vardamírë said. “You’ll never get another opportunity like this.” 

Ûri glanced over her shoulder. Ten feet away, the three men at the nearest table were engrossed in conversation. “How can I work for the king?” she whispered. “How can I go on acting like nothing has changed, like I don’t care about what’s happening –”

“Ûri,” Vardamírë said through her teeth. “Stop.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t just sit at a desk and accept my weekly salary when they’re _burning people alive_ –”

“ _Ûrinzil_.”

Vardamírë’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it would rip out of her chest. They said the Zigûr could hear you anywhere. In the coffee house, in the market, even behind the walls of your home. Sometimes, lying in bed with the darkness heavy around her, Vardamírë convinced herself he was listening to her thoughts. 

Ûri let out a ragged breath. In such a quiet voice Vardamírë could barely hear her, she said, “I feel like I’m betraying you.” 

“I will not be safer if you give this up,” Vardamírë said, just as quietly. “My friends and family will not be safer. They are not going to stop killing us because one ship-captain’s daughter refuses to keep the king’s records in order. These policies are beyond us. Take the job.” Tightening her hands around her coffee cup, she went on, “In fact, I think it’s better if we don’t meet in public anymore. My family is being watched. If the King’s Men notice how much time you spend around me –”

“Oh, shut _up_ , Zaira. If you even try to finish that sentence I’ll push you over the railing.” Ûri rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “If I accept the job, will you let me share my earnings with your family?”

“That’s not fair!” Vardamírë objected. “I already let you buy my coffee. I’m not taking any more of your money.” 

“What’s _not fair_ is that you’re carding wool in a spin shop when you earned higher marks than me on every exam since we were six years old. You’d easily qualify for a career in the civil service, and we both know it.” 

“Fine,” Vardamírë sighed, at once irritated and painfully grateful. A bit of extra money would go a long way for her family, but what touched her most was seeing the helpless anger in Ûri’s eyes. “But only because it’s a beautiful morning and I’m not in the mood to argue with the most stubborn person in Rómenna.” 

Ûri laughed, quick and bright as sunlight on the waves. But just as quickly, her face darkened again. “I hate this, Zaira. I wish – you’ll tell me, won’t you? If there’s anything more I can do?”

Staring into her friend’s earnest, open face, Vardamírë thought, _Fight back. Tear down the temple, overthrow the usurper king and throw his foul advisor into the sea._ But it was a futile thought. The tide of history had been rolling back for centuries, and no acts of resistance could change its course now. 

“Of course,” she said, smiling as she leaned back in her chair. “You can share another pot of coffee with me.” 

 

It was pouring rain the day they fled the city. Water dripped from the ceiling and drummed a steady _plink_ in the buckets on the floor as Vardamírë stuffed the few things she valued in a sack. Her red shawl, with the tassels. An ebony statue of Nienna that had been her grandmother’s. A tiny book of handwritten poems with _nessamelda_ blossoms pressed between the pages, that her father brought her after a journey to the west. 

“Leave it, Vardamírë,” her mother said from the doorway. “Everything we need will be on the ship.” An hour before, their neighbor had pressed the note into her mother’s hand, her father’s handwriting scrawled and urgent. _The lord Elendil has ships docked in the cove west of the city. Come today. Avoid the main gates._

Swinging her bag over her shoulder, Vardamírë followed her mother out into the rain. Outside their stoop the water surged knee-deep, sweeping plants, refuse, and bits of broken tile down the narrow street. “Hold on to me!” Vardamírë shouted, as lightning flashed and her mother staggered against the current. 

They fought their way out of the maze of streets in East Harbor, the neighborhood many scathingly called the Traitor’s Quarter. But as they skirted the market square, Vardamírë heard shouts and the clang of iron-shod boots over the roar of the storm. Her mother swore, pulling her back toward the wall, though there was no cover in sight. “They’re coming this way!”

Panic rising like bile in her throat, Vardamírë cast her eyes upward – and saw a bright yellow window box spilling with jasmine. Even half-drowned in the rain, she knew the flowers, and she knew the house. Grabbing her mother’s hand, she dragged her around the nearest corner and up to a freshly-painted door. Her mother protested as she pounded on the door, and was still protesting when it swung abruptly open. 

Ûrinzil had her hair up in a loose bun, and from the smell of olive oil, she was cooking dinner. She took one look at Vardamírë’s face and dragged her and her mother inside, slamming the door behind them. “Zaira, what is going on? Are you in trouble?”

“Yes,” she said bluntly. “We need to get out of the city, and we can’t be seen. Can you help us?”

Ûri was already pacing. “I would call for a covered litter, but the streets are impassable today. No one will agree to take us. If you’re going west we could try –”

Three hard knocks at the door. They froze. “The bureau,” Ûri hissed. “It latches from inside. Hurry!”

The bureau was spacious and smelled of fresh linens. Inside, Vardamírë clutched her mother’s hand and listened as the door swung open. “Can I help you, sir?” Ûri said. “It is a grim day to be abroad in the streets.” 

“It is only the sky-lord’s bluster. He will have to try harder if he wishes to frighten us.” A man’s voice; young, Vardamírë thought, and trying too hard to be derisive. “But we are not the only ones abroad. We recently learned of a group of spies and dissidents who fled the king’s summons like cowards, and even now plan to sail east and aid the Elves against us.” 

“I see.” Vardamírë could picture Ûri’s expression perfectly, the arch of one skeptical eyebrow. “May I ask why you think my home a likely place to root out dissidents?”

“Is it not true,” the man said, his voice hardening, “that you often keep the company of a woman named Zaira, a seamstress whose family is known to harbor traitorous sentiments against the king and the race of Men?”

“She often mends my clothes, it’s true. I wasn’t aware that treason could be transmitted through a needle and thread.” Ûrinzil’s voice was colder than Vardamírë had ever heard it. “I have served the royal treasury for forty years. My husband is at this moment sailing west with the greatest armada ever built, to wrest glory and life unending from the jealous Valar. My father and brothers are sailing with that armada, in lifelong service to our king, may the world bow at his feet! I do not appreciate being made to stand on my doorstep in the rain and listen to these ridiculous accusations.”

“I have not accused you of anything,” the man said, rather more subdued. “But these are dark times, and we must be vigilant. Will you allow me to take a brief look around?”

“If you wish,” Ûri sniffed. “Please try not to drip water on my floor.”

 _Varda, brightest and most beloved_ , Vardamírë thought feverishly, as she listened to furniture being moved and pillows tossed aside. _Cast your light upon me, though I walk deep under shadow. Do not forsake me_ – 

“Ammȇ?” A girl’s voice, clear and curious. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sweetheart. This man has lost something and thinks it may be under our couch.” 

“You are a very lucky girl, to live in such a nice house,” the man said, casually. “Does your ammȇ have friends over often?”

“Mm-hmm. Sometimes we invite people over to look through the telescope on the roof. Do you want to see it?”

“Perhaps another time. Has a woman named Zaira ever come to your house?”

Vardamírë stopped breathing, and did not start again until she heard the girl say, “I don’t think so.”

A thump, as something was shoved back into place. “I’m sorry for disturbing you both,” the man said, the sound of his feet moving toward the door. Then, in a kinder voice, “You should be very proud of your attȏ.” 

Vardamírë waited a full ten seconds after the door closed. Then she unlatched the bureau and stumbled out, arm around her mother’s trembling shoulders. Ûri was slumped against the wall; holding her hand, a curly-haired eleven year old went wide-eyed. “Auntie?”

In spite of everything, Vardamírë laughed. “Hello, Izindi. You were very clever just now.” 

“What were you doing in the bureau? Are you staying for dinner?”

Smile falling, she watched Ûri kneel before her daughter and place both hands on her shoulders. “Sweetheart, Auntie Zaira and I need to go on a trip.” 

“ _Now_?” Izindi glanced out the window at the lashing rain, the quirk of her eyebrows a mirror image of her mother’s. 

“I’m afraid so. It might be a few hours. Can you be a big girl and wait here by yourself?”

Solemnly, Izindi nodded, and Ûri rose with a determined tilt to her chin. “Where do you need to go?”

“The fields north of the King’s Road.” It was Vardamírë’s mother who spoke; her hands still shook, but the clipped firmness had returned to her voice. “But we must avoid all the main plazas and thoroughfares; they will be searching there.” 

Ûri glanced sidelong at Vardamírë. “I think I have an idea,” she said. 

 

Out the back door, they cut through the courtyard behind Ûri’s townhouse, where orange trees stood sodden in the rain. As Ûri unlatched the gate and drew them down a narrow alley, the rain turned to hail, pelting them with ice stones the size of a child’s fist. Vardamírë no longer bothered to pray, no longer expected the Valar’s rage to distinguish between faithful and heretic. Covering her head with both hands, she ran blindly. 

At last, they stumbled, gasping, against the wall of an abandoned warehouse. “Where are we?” Vardamírë’s mother asked, as Ûri slammed her weight against the rusty handle, forcing the door open. 

For the second time that terrible day, Vardamírë found herself laughing. “It’s the old storage warehouse at the fisherman’s wharf, Ammȇ. Ûrinzil used to bring me here and teach me to climb around on the roof when we told you we were studying.” 

“I don’t recall you _objecting_ ,” Ûri said as they made their tentative way inside. The warehouse was dark and musty, the floor littered with fishhooks and faded stains. It extended back farther than Vardamírë could see. “It spans about a half mile of the harbor. If we go to the other end, we’ll be nearly to the edge of the city.”

Rain drummed on the tin roof far overhead as they picked their way through the dark, clutching each other’s hands. Soon Vardamírë was aware of nothing but the warm pressure of Ûri’s fingers, and her ragged breathing. She realized, distantly, that she did not want to reach the door at the other side. An end was coming, and she was not ready to face it. 

All the same, the door came, gray light leaking through the keyhole. Pushing it open, Vardamírë saw the gray sea roaring against the pier, and to her left, a few dilapidated houses at the edge of a muddy field. In the distance, where the bay curved, she thought she could make out nine great ships rocking on the waves.

Ûri followed her gaze. “So it’s true?” she said, and Vardamírë saw that she hadn’t really understood until this moment. “You’re leaving?”

“For Middle-earth. There’s nothing left for us here.” Struck with sudden clarity, she grabbed Ûri’s hands. “Come with us! Go now, get Izindi – we will tell them to wait –”

Ûri drew back as if struck. “I can’t leave.”

Thunder rumbled, low and distant across the sea. “Ûrinzil,” Vardamírë said, quiet but unrelenting. “They are never coming back.” 

“You can’t know that.” 

“Call it faith.” She smiled humorously. “Look around you. Is this the world you want her to grow up in?”

For an endless moment, Ûri stared down at where their fingers were intertwined. Then she shook her head. “I can’t leave,” she repeated. “I’m sorry. Maybe someday, when things have settled – you can come back?”

It was an absurd thing to say, but Vardamírë could not blame her for it. Despite everything, this was her home, and she wanted to believe there would someday be a place for her here. “Maybe,” she agreed, swallowing hard past the knot in her throat. 

Ûri felt no such need for restraint. She was weeping freely as she threw her arms around her. “This isn’t goodbye, Zaira. I know I’ll see you again.” 

Lifting her face so they were pressed forehead to forehead, she whispered, “Vardamírë. My name is Vardamírë.”

“Vardamírë.” Ûri shaped each syllable with reverence; light trill of an r, vowel round as a pearl. “Like the stars. Your name is beautiful.” 

Vardamírë squeezed her hand. Then she untangled their fingers, and walked out into the rain. 

 

When she opens her eyes, the sky is black overhead, and the lights of town are a distant glimmer. Without her realizing, the sea has carried her far away, drawing her like a leaf on the current. The water is warm and gentle, soothing. Deceptive, to those who have not seen what it can become. But Vardamírë has seen; never again will she pray to the Lady Uinen for mercy. 

_Hold us in your palm._  
_Hold us upon the swell of your breast._

She has imagined it a thousand times. In her mind, Ûrinzil is standing in the courtyard behind her house, beside the orange trees, when the wave smashes her into the wall and breaks her head on the stone. Or she is running up the stairs, screaming for Izindi, when the roof comes down on her head, tile and plaster and, above it, a million tons of water. Or she is in the kitchen, holding her daughter in her arms. _Hush, sweetheart, it will be all right. I promise, I promise._

A new death, repeated over and over each night when she closes her eyes. She holds them close, polishes them like pearls on a string. Someday when she stands before the One whose love her people went to the fire for, she will take them out and hand them to Him, one by one. _Here is your justice. Is it enough to cleanse the world of our transgressions? Are the scales balanced? Are we absolved?_

But the sea cares nothing for weights and measures. It takes what it is offered: a father’s letters, a life, an island and its history. It is large enough to swallow them all and never know what has been lost. 

Vardamírë is small, with a mind for small things. The downfall of Númenor is beyond her power to understand. But a red hair ribbon, a corner table on the patio of a coffee house, a woman’s smile – these things she knows, and will not let go. 

There are millions of ghosts in the water. But as Vardamírë walks back to shore, she thinks she can feel her friend walking at her side.


End file.
